1953 Packard Caribbean (below) and 1955 Caribbean (opposite).
THE LAST GREAT THE PACKARD CARIBBEAN | BY MICHAEL LAMM P
ackard’s last great car, the Carib- bean, had its roots in a low, clean roadster dubbed the Pan Ameri- can, a 1952 show car designed by Richard Arbib and built by the Henney Motor Co. in Freeport, Illinois.
In the early 1950s, Packard deal- ers needed a halo car, and the Pan American seemed a good candidate. It proved too costly, however, so Packard management asked its new chief stylist, Dick Teague, to come up with a more reasonable, more appealing alternative.
Teague essentially took the six-passen- ger Packard convertible and gave it a mixed set of styling cues. He borrowed the clean body sides, chromed wire wheels and full rear fender cutouts from European sports cars and, most likely, from Virgil Exner’s Chrysler K-310 concept coupe. The testicular taillights came from senior Packards, and the Continental Kit and faux hood scoop were pure Detroit.
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Henney bid on the Caribbean, as did Michigan’s Ionia Body Division of Mitchell-Bentley Corporation. Ionia won, and Mitchell-Bentley ended up handbuilding and finishing all 1953 and 1954 Caribbeans.
The first Caribbean went on sale in March 1953, just in time to join GM’s trio of country club convertibles — the Cadillac Eldorado, Buick Skylark and Oldsmobile Fiesta. Mitchell-Bentley turned out 750 Caribbeans that year and would have built more, but Packard wanted to preserve the car’s exclusivity. Looking back, that first-year Carib- bean wasn’t especially luxurious. True, it came with leather upholstery, radio and heater, but power accessories and the automatic transmission cost extra. And it used the base Packard’s five- main, L-head, straight-eight engine and three-speed manual transmission. Even so, the car wasn’t inexpensive. In 1953, it sold for $5,210 ($60,400 in today’s dollars) versus $4,144 for a new Cadillac
Series 62 convertible or $5,000 for a Buick Skylark.
The Caribbean became more luxuri- ous for 1954 but lost some of its sporty cachet. Teague gave the ’54 more conservative styling, eliminating the rear wheel arches and giving the car a two-tone paint treatment. The instru- ment panel, shared with senior Pack- ards, was also new. On the engineer- ing side, the Caribbean engine now displaced 359 cubic inches rather than 327, had nine main bearings instead of five, featured an aluminum head and produced 32 more horses.
Incoming Packard President James Nance wanted to re-establish the marque as a luxury leader, so he added more standard equipment to the Caribbean and senior models. For 1954, Ultramatic and power ac- cessories became standard, and the Caribbean’s price rose to $6,100, the highest in the car’s brief history.
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
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